Phil drew back startled after a first glance, to look into Helen's eyes expressive of her intense enjoyment of the situation; and then irresistibly he looked again in the mirror. Two and a half centuries stood between the two Sanfords. Add thirty years to those of the man sitting at the table and dress him in the same garb as the man in the portrait and it would be difficult to tell them apart. Phil was not more thrilled than confused. And then another face appeared beside his in the mirror. It was Henriette's, peeping in at the edge, her lips parted in a teasing smile. "Very like, isn't it?" she said softly. "Yes," he murmured to the reflection; and the reflection was gone, leaving him alone with that of the ancestor. "The old blood!" exclaimed the vicar, with deep emotion. "His brother was the founder of the American family and your father and you and I are the only male descendants. Wait!" And he left the room. "Which means that the plot thickens, I suppose," Phil remarked, with an accusing look at Helen. "Honestly, I'm in the dark about his intentions," she said, still holding the mirror. The humour of the situation suddenly smote her, and she was laughing as she had into that same mirror before dinner. She noted a shade of surprise in his eyes, and realisation that the cause of it was his discovery that when she laughed she did have a certain charm that brought the blood to her cheeks. She had been caught posing--nothing less. The laugh died; not even a smile remained. The lump of nose, the irregular features, the broad mouth--she was her plain, usual self again. "Go on laughing!" he exclaimed, unconsciously voicing his thought in his surprise. "I mean----" embarrassedly, "it's your joke. I believe your conscience is already troubling you for the trick." "It is a mirror conscience," she answered, looking back at him soberly; and then, from the infection of surprise in his eyes, a gathering, quizzical smile spread until it broke in another ripple of laughter. "That is a new kind of conscience, Helen. Explain!" said her sister. "To you, too, Henriette?" said Helen. "I've only just found it, myself." "Apparently it is in the backs of mirrors," murmured Henriette. "I don't blame Henriette for never looking at the back, do you?" Helen asked Phil. Phil thought a little revenge was due him for having a mirror set in front of him for the purpose of a comparison of physiognomies. "Hardly. I envy the mirror!" he said, turning to her. But she had dropped her gaze to her coffee cup and took a deliberate sip before looking up. "It is always pleasant to say foolish things nicely," she remarked. "But he is sincere. If he weren't it would be accusing him of blindness, wouldn't it, cousin?" put in Helen mischievously. "Absolutely!" he managed to say, conscious that he was not having much revenge and that things were getting brittle; while Mrs. Sanford, pretending to smile, could not quite follow the nimble conversation.